Elder Jordan Chatman: Week 49 -April 1, 2013

Week 49

April 1, 2013

Hey everyone,

Hope everybody is doing good. It started heating up last week, but luckily it cooled back down this week. So we are safe for a while, until the excruciating heat comes back! lol

Last Monday, we went to Taipei 101 and handed-out our English class flyers. We were hoping that some more people would come to our class. Not a lot of success because it was too touristy where we went. There were mainly just people there from China who were taking tours, no one that actually lived in Taiwan. Then we went to a less-active’s house. He had setup an appointment with us a few days before. But when we stopped by at the scheduled time, he wasn’t home and didn’t answer his phone. This kind of thing happens almost daily in Taiwan. Someone setups with you and then they don’t show up for their appointment. They call it "Fang Gezi"

Tuesday, we had some more "Fang Gezi." On the street, we found this cool older man and taught him about God and prayer. He, of course, is really into Buddhism, but he at least he was willing to listen.

On Wednesday, we met with a less-active man that owns this like laser hair removal shop. We taught him from Moroni Chapter 6 and he committed to come to church, but he never ended up coming. After the lesson, we ate with him at a "hot pot" store. Hot pot is where they have a bowl of water and they put it on a stove thing in front of you and start boiling the water. Then you throw in vegetables and meat and stuff and eat it with your rice. It’s actually pretty good. We also taught English class later that night.

On Thursday, we went on exchanges. Elder Gerrard came out here with me. He is on his first transfer, fresh out the MTC! haha I felt bad for him! The first transfer is tough. His Chinese is pretty bad and I’m just like “man I remember when my Chinese was like that too!” It comes eventually though. On Friday, we went with the Bishop and visited a less-active family who runs a noodle shop. We ate lunch there and talked to the family a bit. The Dad actually never got confirmed, only baptized (hmm what good does that do?) He has some Word of Wisdom problems though. We are going to try and do a FHE (a family home evening lesson) with them though and see if we can help him out. On Saturday, we went to the chapel by the temple and sang “Called to Serve” at the Young Women Broadcast. Then that afternoon I spoke at the English ward Bishop's 8 year old son's baptism. The son wanted me to speak at it. Later, that night, we visited Brother You and his wife. Brother You is a super cool young guy that used to be an AP (assistant to the president) in this mission like 2 years ago. Then on Sunday, our ward did a little Easter activity (although outside the church it isn't celebrated in Taiwan). All of us missionaries talked about Jesus Christ and sang a hymn. Right now, we have no investigators progressing towards baptism. We had one 17 year old young man that was going strong, but then he called us up this week and said his parents won’t allow him to get baptized anymore...but we are praying for a miracle.

Oh yeah, we had an earthquake this week too. It was a 3.0 here in Taipei and a 6.0 in Taichung. Nothing big -our apartment just shook back and forth for like 10 seconds.

okay here's another cool Chinese character and the gospel relation lesson - so the character for start or beginning is 始 (shi). So on the left side you have a Nu (which is the character for woman) so this represents Eve, the first woman. On the top right, you have the character for a snake, and on the bottom right you have a kou - the character for mouth. Eve, a snake, a mouth make up the character for start or beginning.- I am going to let you figure out the meaning of that. Cool stuff right

Love,

Elder Chatman